FreeBSD 4.2 Is Out

Quite a number of people have e-mailed in the last bit about the release of FreeBSD 4.2. This is the release - you should try it out today, because CowboyNeal sez so, and he's currently updating it on his Vaio.

Comments

Re:BSD vs. Solaris

[kyrre]

As far as i know BSD forked from unix. The original AT&T. And the university of california was tied up in court with them for a long time.

Quick link to the release notes / changelog

[StandardDeviant]

For those of you who might be curious and lazy, here's a quick link to the RELNOTE S.T XT for this release (i.e. the changelog/release notes).

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Re:Why not use Solaris instead?

[StandardDeviant]

Well, Solaris isn't exactly iron-clad in the security dept. by default. For that, it's OpenBSD hands down. If you need big iron, well, then you're probably running a proprietary Unix anyway (like irix for some huge SGI-based vis lab, AIX on some huge S/80 ibm db2 box, Solaris on some huge Sun Oracle box, etc.). Free unixen are IMHO best suited to the problem space addressed by bunches of ``little'' boxes (best hardware support there, anyway, and similar price structure), by little I mean <= 4 cpus and <= 2gb of ram... (i.e. web farms, render farms, distributed DB serving, workstations, etc)

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Re:heh

[august70]

I have been using FreeBSD for over 3 years now,and one thing I can say about it is that it is solid! even in the current branches! It has the ability to run Linux binaries if you feel the need, but the ports collection offers quite a variety of apps. I am not asking to get flamed here but I have benched my dual PIII-550 w/FreeBSD against my dual PIII-650 and found that apps are a lot faster on FreeBSD ( e.g. gimp,). And yes they both have the exact hardware!

Re:BSD vs. Solaris - No, sun forked

[bluGill]

No, you have that wrong. Sun forked sunOS versions 1.0-4.x from BSD. BSD always was BSD, sunOS was the fork by sun. Suns lawyers never sued BSD. Currently sunOS is at version 5.x (I think they call it vesion 8 now, but it is still version 5) which is NOT based on the forked BSD code but rather based on the orginial AT&T code.

There were legal problems in the early battles, but they were caused by whoever owned unix at that time (AT&T yet? I'm not sure) BSD got around them by re-writing the code in question, and setteling. since BSD never has had (much) money the settelment wasn't a big deal.

Re:Why not use Solaris instead?

[selectspec]

No offense, but what kind of crack are you smokin? Solaris on x86 is like molasses riddled with bugs. Don't get me wrong, if your running an E10k or something, don't install BSD (athough it might be interesting).

Re:BSD vs. Solaris

[Icebox]

Take a look at the Unix Roadmap. BSD forked from the Unix Time Sharing System (V6). SunOS actually came from 4BSD, FreeBSD shows up right after 386 BSD 0.1.

Anyway, the map is so convoluted at that point that it is hard to tell what shares code with what.

Really...

[JurriAlt137n]

This is the release - you should try it out today, because CowboyNeal sez so, and he's currently updating it on his Vaio.

I'd somehow really appreciate it if he were to install it first and tell me to do so later...when he's sure it works...

Re:Really...

[CowboyNeal]

It works. Fortunately, more people run FreeBSD than just me, so you'd be amazed at how well it gets tested before it even gets tagged for release.

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Re:Really...

[mosch]

FreeBSD mosch.eng.foo.net 4.2-RELEASE FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE #0: Mon Nov 20 16:42:35 EST 2000 root@mosch.eng.tvol.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/BASTI D i386

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[jcs]

OpenBSD works great on laptops. USB, PCMCIA, APM, etc.

I have a page describing how to get OpenBSD running on two Sony Vaios.

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[AntiBasic]

FreeBSD pcmcia support isn't that great. The FreeBSD Japan group started PAO extentions for 3.x series but it hasn't really been merged in the 4.x branch. OpenBSD is the best for pcmcia support on notebooks though. Look into that.

Do yourself a favor: Try it

[f5426]

FreeBSD rocks. I used linux for 3 years. I tried FreeBSD 6 months ago, and felt in love with it.

The very very best thing about FreeBSD is the coherence of the whole. For instance, all the sources in /usr/src

/usr/src/sys: the kernel
/usr/src/bin: /bin directory
/usr/src/sbin: /sbin
/usr/src/usr.bin: /usr/bin
/usr/src/usr.sbin /usr/sbin
etc, etc

The sources of ls are in /usr/src/bin/ls
Wanna change and recompile ls ? Change /usr/bin/ls/ls., cd /usr/bin/ls and make install.

Wanna recompile the whole thing ?

cd /usr/src
make buildworld
make installworld
mergemaster (if config files have changed)
reboot

All the system is maintained under CVS. Want to upgrade the *whole* system to current version ?

cvsup -L 2 stable-supfile

Then make buildworld & installworld.

Almost all of the configuration is made in /etc/rc.conf

And there is the very clean port tree. About 4500 programs in /usr/ports, present in the form of patches to the original versions. For instance:

cd /usr/ports/graphics/gimp1
make install
[Downloads source of the gimp]
[Patches sources]
[Compile]
[Install]

Of course all needed libraries will be fetched/patched/compiled in the way.

And all the ports are in CVS too, so

cvsup -L 2 ports-supfile

will keep you up-to-date with latest ports

Everything in the system is very very nicely engineered. There is a vision here, not a collection of hacks.

Cheers,

--fred

Re:Do yourself a favor: Try it

[Howie]

And there is the very clean port tree.

The port tree is indeed very cool, as long as you stick within it. I spent a few annoying hours yesterday trying to convince various GTK/KDE/Tk napster-clones to compile on my 4.1 system, without a great deal of luck.

I'm not sure if it's just people assuming that GTK==Linux and the files will be in particular places (FreeBSD prefixes stuff with the version number for gtk and tcl/tk at least) or me or dodgy software, but it was rather frustrating.

While on that subject, could those folks writing these types of things stop writing Linux apps, and start writing Unix apps, please? It's like "all the world's SunOS 4.1" or "all the world's a VAX" all over again!

Re:Do yourself a favor: Try it

[RickHunter]

I agree! I'm a Linux user myself, but I've got a lot of friends that use BSD-style systems... Enough so that I'm going to try FreeBSD myself when I get some spare time. Even within the Linux world, there's a lot of problems with coders assuming that Linux == Red Hat, which causes me no end of pain when I want to install some software that isn't available as a Debian package.

-RickHunter

Re:Do yourself a favor: Try it

[warlock]

> It strikes me that all the stuff
> you list above as things you like
> are to do with the FreeBSD distribution
> as opposed to it's kernel.

A distinction between the "kernel" and
a "distribution" in FreeBSD does not
exist, and doesn't make sense either.

There's one CVS repository with the kernel,
the userland, the ports and documentation,
and jkh calls for a freeze on the release
engineering branch every now and then
and rolls a release, much like 4.2 now.

> The above could all be achieved
> with a linux distribution.

In theory yes, anything can be achieved.

In practice I've seen no linux distribution
even coming close to such a degree of elegance,
although I do agree that this is subjective,
and other people might prefer Debians scheme
of organizing things.

You really have to try managing a few dozen
boxes and try to keep them up to date with
local customizations (at the source level)
both with FreeBSD and with ANY other system
to realise just how simple and elegant the
FreeBSD way is *engineered*...

-W

PS - Yes, I've tried debian and wasn't
particularly impressed.

Re:Do yourself a favor: Try it

[god, did I say that]

The above could all be achieved with a linux distribution.

No, it cant. You'd need to merge DEVELOPMENT of kernel AND userland software for that to happen in any remotely effective manner. FreeBSD isnt a distribution in the sense Linux users understand. Even 3rd party ports have a structure imposed upon them. Their sources, when installed, all live under a single directory structure which is readily grokked and upgradeable.

This is Linux's biggest failing, for me, that it is merely a kernel There is a distinct lack of cohesion that simply _cannot_ be addressed by any distribution. Performance issues are a wash. Sometimes FreeBSD is faster, sometimes Linux. The numbers never justify any crowing, though.

The cohesion extends into policy, as well. Changes arent committed to ls.c if they cant survive a majority vote of professional developers. Linux distributions have no say over what transpires in the source code. I never understood Linux's popularity over BSD. I've always attributed it to a naive reading of the GPL which seems to draw in all the l33t anarchists. No one I (_I_) know with experience of either prefers Linux to FreeBSD.

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Re:Do yourself a favor: Try it

[Arandir]

Ditto on the linuxisms. When 99% of Linux software can be made to work with every single Unix out there with only a minimum amount of effort, there is no excuse for linuxisms. FreeBSD is free (hence the name). Throw it on a spare partition and make sure your software will compile and run on it before you release it into the world.

Saying your software only runs on Linux just lets the world know you're lazy.

Re:Do yourself a favor: Try it

[f5426]

Another poster replied to most of your questions.

> More importantly, is there a way to update and rebuild all of the ports you have installed with one command? I don't want to have to track the versions of all the ports I have installed to know that I need to update them. (Maybe I've been spoiled by apt-get :)

Yes. You look spoiled by apt-get :-). Magic upgrading of the ports (by opposition to manual upgrading of the system) is not possible yet (but pkg_version can help you, but this won't be magic).

It is supposed to come in a forthcoming version. Note that I didn't had any real need of that. I aim at a stable (but secure) system. The constant run-for-the-bleeding-edge of linux pissed me. I had a couple of box. One was a 'forgotten server' that was not upgraded (because it ran essential services. Guess what ? It have been cracked). The other one was one of my development machine. I'd say that about a quarter of the time was used to try to keep thing together while upgrading things (maynly the kernel, which in turn asked for binutils, which asked for an upgrade, which fucked up my pam configuration, etc, etc). Generally, when the system was too fucked, it was time for a re-install from scracth. Maybe I am a moron. Or, maybe I should have used a RH ditrib :-)

I may run into troubles with FreeBSD too, but the first 6 months have been a pleasant experience. It seems that debian aim at giving the same kind of user-experience too.

Of course, your mileage may vary.

I also love FreeBSD for this:

bash-2.03$ man ata

ATA(4) FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual ATA(4)

NAME
ata, acd, ad, afd, ast - Generic ATA/ATAPI disk controller driver

[...]

bash-2.03$ ls -l /usr/share/man/man4 | wc -l
261
bash-2.03$

This come from the fact that FreeBSD is a system, not a kernel + userland.

Cheers,

--fred

Re:Do yourself a favor: Try it

[f5426]

> except for the fact that man pages are something stuck in the 70s, a new cross-*nix standard needs to be defined

Yeah. But it would have to be at least as good as manpages. That means readable from a text terminal, and visible in a single-page format... And it would need to be compatible with man pages...

> How does Debian compare to FreeBSD in terms of integration and attention to detail, for example consistency of utilities, presence of man pages and their 'uptodateness'? I'd really like to know.

I don't have an extensive experience with debian (ie: I tried it only once), but based to what knowledgable people said on various mailing lists, it is a very cleanly integrated system. Apt-get is supposed superior to any other packaging system in this side of the universe.

But no matter how hard they try, they can't match a few niceties of FreeBSD that come from the fact that it is integrated. I, for one, track stable which means that all my systems are at most 1 week behind the latest stable release of FreeBSD. (There is a new stable release several times in a day. Each time a developer commit a modification, in fact). Debian is very well known to be an extremely robust linux distribution that uses extensively tested kernels. Which means that they are outdated (ie: stable debian is 2.2.x kernel)

This come from the linux kernel development process as there is no new stable linux release since 2.2.x. Why should anyone have to choose between USB and stability ? FreeBSD have USB since a long time ago.

In my opinion FreeBSD have a much more "bazaar" way of doing things than linux.

What I would dream of is exactly when FreeBSD did to the kernel + user-land beeing extended to the graphical interface software. This would produce a hackable box, with which one could get the job done without spending days downloading things as basic as text editors, mail software, and configuring things, etc, etc

Cheers,

--fred

Re:Do yourself a favor: Try it

[ajs]

(1) A typical linux install doesnt install the sources at all.

Install? Not by default, of course. However, every Linux distribution I know of comes with sources (except the ones that specialize in being tiny like the one-floppy distros). Red Hat and Debian both have very sophisticated (Debian slightly more so) ways of managing these sources.

(2) Even if it did, the sources would come from 10 different places and be installed in 10 different locations.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and just assume you're misinformed. Red Hat, for example:

• mount /mnt/cdrom
  cd /mnt/cdrom/SRPMS
  rpm -i *.src.rpm

Now all of my sources live under /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES, and to build any one of them, I type the same command (modulo the name of the package): rpm -bb /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/<package>.spec This deposits the binary packages into /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/<arch>

If you just wanted the sources unpacked, and any local patches applied, change -bb to -bp. Type rpm --help if you want a full list of all available options (you might want to pipe that through a pager, since RPM has about as many uses as any 10 swiss-army knives including post-install verification, signature checking, many forms of package query on installed or pending packages, etc.

Of course, if by "from 10 different locations" you meant that the development teams were in 10 different locations, then you're right (though under-stating the case) for every free UNIX and UNIX-like system I've ever seen. XFree86 is maintained by their development team, not BSD, not Red Hat, not VA/Linux. Red Hat maintains patches against XFree86 and contributes to the development, but so does NetBSD. However both Red Hat and NetBSD have their own version of XFree86, configured, patched and tuned for their platforms that get released with their software. That version has sources which can be acquired from their respective organizations in the same place that all other sources for that distribution are maintained. There is no difference in approach here.

(3) not even the damn kernel is under cvs.

Re-read that as: "the kernel is one of the very, very few things that is not maintained under CVS", and even that's wrong as most Linux distribution vendors maintain their own source countrol over their distributions (which is, after all, what happens in the BSD world... it's just that no one thinks of BSDi, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD and all of the commercial applications of BSD as distributions). Linus maintains the Kernel sources in the way that he sees fit, and it seems to work quite well. I don't see the problem here.

Keep in mind that a lot of the software we're talking about here (X, Emacs, browsers, gcc) is the same anyway. The differences between your average Linux distribution and your average BSD distribution really should be shrinking as time goes on. Of course, this is not true because everyone is in their own camp and wants to do their own thing.

The Red Hat and Debian systems work well, and accomplish what people generally want. If there's something specific that you want and those don't do it, you can always submit a bug report to your distribution vendor. Include a patch, and it's that much more likely to be dealt with quickly.

BSD, Linux, Solaris, HP/UX... it's all the same. Good software poorly managed by factions of semi-religous cults (not trolling here, just summing up what I've observed over the last 12 years). I really hope someone, someday can see past all of the crap and reach into this stew of open source code and pull out a single set of internally-consistent, well documented tools for getting work done.

Re:Dammit...

[shippo]

I used to call this Tony's law, after a collegue at work.

"A new OS version will be released on they day that Tony downloads the ISO for the previous version".

He did it at least 3 times in a few months, offering to sell us CDs he'd just cut for media-only costs.

I don't know where he is now, but he's probably installing FreeBSD 4.1.

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[agshekeloh]

I use FreeBSD on my Toshiba Satellite just fine. Sound, X, pcmcia, everything. If you're having trouble with PCMCIA, check out this Big Scary Daemons article: Laptops, PC Cards, and FreeBSD Short answer; if it doesn't work, you probably have an IRQ conflict.

Java 2 for FreeBSD

[dglo]

Hey, where's that Java 2 I was promised?

For the Linux port

cd /usr/ports/java/linux-jdk && make install

For the native port,

cd /usr/ports/java/jdk12-beta && make install

Note that the native port is built from scratch due to licensing restrictions.

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[fuzzcat]

I find that the PCMCIA stuff works pretty well under FreeBSD 4.x. I just recently bought a used IBM Thinkpad 365XD, and I've got everything up and running smoothly (with the minor exception that I can't get X running in 800x600). The pccard daemon smoothly handles the hot swapping of my various cards quite happily.

I had a lot of trouble getting my PCMCIA ethernet card - a LinkSys PCMPC100 V2 - working with the standard 4.1.1 boot floppies (I wanted to use that card to download via FTP). The fact that the ID string for the card had "V2" in it was confusing pccardd. So I hacked up my own installation floppies which recognized the card and it worked like a dream.

Plus (I know this is kind of lame), FreeBSD 5.x PCMCIA support is going to be even better. (Try tracking bleeding edge -CURRENT to see what I'm talking about.)

I have nothing against Linux. BSD just feels a lot more natural to me.

Re:Dammit...

[ps]

The Java 2 is availible in /usr/ports/java/jdk12-beta as well as ;Ta r file We've been running it with no problems for some time now

Re:But how's the IEEE1394 support?

[VFVTHUNTER]

I've been learning a ton of stuff from the responses to this post, so I thought I'd share. For all of you out there who are thinking about buying a VAIO but are hesitant because of the Firewire (iLink) issue, you need to know that the only difference between plain-vanilla firewire and Sony's "iLink" is that the iLink does not provide power to FireWire Devices. The port on my laptop, a PCGF540, is an S400. It's the smaller type of Firewire port, and it only has 4 pins as opposed to the normal 6 (you guessed it - the missing pins are positive voltage and ground).

In the latest 2.4 kernels, the Sony CXD-3222 chipset, which is what I've got, works like a charm. Not sure about FreeBSD tho. Anyways, if you're shopping for one, boot it up in Windoze, go to Control Panel --> System --> Device Manager --> 1394 Bus Controller. If you Sony CXD3222 OCHI, it will work :)

The you can use FIPS to get rid of the Win partition.

Windows has detected that you have moved your mouse. Windows will now reboot in order for this change to take effect

Beware

[Fervent]

A friend of mine installed FreeBSD 4.2 on a new machine and got scrambled text on boot. No joke.

There might still be a few bugs to work out.

Re:Beware

[mosch]

Your friend should report the bug, and a method of reproducing it. No joke.

Running 4.2 here, no probs.

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

wrong server to slashdot

[hawk]

That server holds pretty much *all* of the download records, and has for several years.

It may get slow, but it can saturate its link, and a mere slashdotting can't bring it down . . .

However, you will generally get *much* faster results from a regional server.

hawk

Solid, but . . .

[hawk]

I've brought both FreeBSD (3.2?) and Linux down from userland, and both are repeateable. I've never seen responses to bug reprots, so I don't know if it applies.

FreeBSD: go to image-link laden page (news collages, etc.) and middle-click on a slew of images under netscape 3. This causes many netscape windows and instances of xv to try to load. It overwhelmed the vm (but i didn't leave it until morning--it still answered pings, but eventually stopped swapping)>

Linux: debian kerenl 2.4.pre5. a) load 1.6G file into beav with only 160M of memory. Same vm oveload
b) I still don't know exactly what happened, as my fingers slipped, but I believe I selected two columns, and pasted them overlapping one of the two, causing massive memory allocation with recursion. *wham*.

All three of these were done from userland, not as root. The first two are repeatable, and I expect I could repeat the third if i knew what happened :)

hawk

Re:Solid, but . . .

[mosch]

Yes, you can always do stupid things to make a machine die, that's why a smart FreeBSD administrator would have an /etc/login.conf which had restrictions so that some idiot couldn't initiate a DOS from userland.

Get back to me when you can repeat those with a properly configured machine.

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Re:Solid, but . . .

[GypC]

Linux has resource limits.

"Free your mind and your ass will follow"

Re:Solid, but . . .

[GypC]

man limit, man ulimit, in bash try 'help ulimit'.

"Free your mind and your ass will follow"

fucking troll

[mosch]

Maybe because ummm... we want/need to use free software.

I'd respond further, but honestly, it's really evident you're:

1. Trolling (poorly)
2. Really damned stupid
3. Uneducated

Anyway, if I'm wrong, then go do some real computing, and come back when you've answered your own question.

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Re:Why not use Solaris instead?

[mosch]

Actually, there are patches for zero copy sockets and NFS for FreeBSD-current. It's bleeding edge, but if you want zero-copy, it might be worth exploring, at least for future development.

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Re:Why not use Solaris instead?

[mosch]

No, it wouldn't even be possible. FreeBSD doesn't run on sparc.

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Re:RC2?

[cetan]

RC2 = Release Canidate 2

Re:Why not use Solaris instead?

[Chalst]

Solaris scales great on Sun hardware. If you happen to actually like
Solaris, and you have lots of Sun hardware, then no doubt about it, go
for Solaris over FreeBSD.

We had some Sun folks here offering free Sun boxes. We took some
boxes as clients, but my research group decided to stick with FreeBSD
on Intel as our main server...

Re:Upgrading FreeBSD

[mosch]

nothing as nice as apt-get dist-upgrade, FreeBSD still lacks a really good binary upgrade system, the only really easy way to do it is to keep the source handy and remake the world and the kernel yourself. as for the ports, pkg_version -c can help with keeping them up to date.

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Debian does it ...just as well

[Ars-Fartsica]

Not only will it download and install gimp, but all the dependencies as well.

So does FreeBSD. So would any package system that intended to create a working port.

And since the packages are binary, there is no need to wait for it to compile.

FreeBSD supports binary packages as well.

You can, of course, always force it, but if you do that make sure the force is with you!

FreeBSD supports similar conflict management, and a FORCE feature.

BSD is better :-D

[jallen02]

This brings us to the most important point, BSD is far superior to Linux because BSd is already on version 4.2, while Linux lags behind at version 2.4!!! Can you believe that people?

:-) (ITS A JOKE LAUGH!:)

Jeremy

Re:BSD is better :-D

[T-Punkt]

> This brings us to the most important point, BSD is far superior to Linux because BSd is already on
> version 4.2

Actually:
The latest release of BSD was 4.4
The latest release of FreeBSD is 4.2
The latest release of NetBSD is 1.4.2, 1.5 will be out in a few days (weeks?)
The latest release of OpenBSD is 2.7, 2.8 is on its way
The latest release of BSD/OS (BSDi Internet Server) is 4.1

Re:freaks!

[segmond]

if I am running 2.2 you can imagine what hardware I am running it on, SMP, USB, PCM sound, ATA-66 are all out of the questions. I installed secure shell, it is just a tunneling server. :)

Re:Upgrading FreeBSD

[spohl]

The easiest way to (binary-) upgrade is to use the upgrade option of /stand/sysinstall. I did this yesterday to upgrade my 4.0-RELEASE to 4.1.1-RELEASE and it worked flawlessly (and probably a lot faster than a makeworld). But before doing that you should carefully read UPGRADE.TXT provided in the root-directory of every release. The most important points you have to take care of are: make backups (just in case... ;-) and use 'the version of sysinstall supplied with the version of FreeBSD to which you intend to upgrade'.

Re:X 4

[ozzmosis]

no it does not install X4 by default. because of possable root exploits in XFree86 4.X but you can compile it in /usr/ports

Re:But how's the IEEE1394 support?

[gaj]

Actually the only real difference between iLink and FireWire is the spelling. Both are implementations of IEEE1394, wich allows for both powered and unpowered ports (6-pin and 4-pin, respectivly).

If my 505's battery life were better I would have loved to have a 6-pin port, but most devices are self-powered anyway, so no big deal.
--
If your map and the terrain differ,
trust the terrain.

Re:heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, but that's too many words for linux users.


# ftp ftp.redhat.com

Anonymous user limit reached


Damn, I hate always being the 10th person to hit the redhat site.


ftp ftp.freesoftware.com

Welcome to ftp.freesoftware.com - home FTP site for Walnut Creek CDROM. There are currently 2047 users out of 5000 possible.


One machine.

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[SIGFPE]

I used FreeBSD 3.4 (PAO) and FreeBSD 4.0 with PCMCIA and it just worked (on a Vaio 505TX). I was using it for a year with absolutely no problem - in fact PCMCIA worked 100% reliably unlike under Windows 98 or Linux. However I was completely unable to install FreeBSD 4.1.1 - it failed to detect the PCMCIA ethernet card and so I couldn't do a net installation. I tried every IRQ setting possible as well as the 'correct' settings gleaned from Windows 2000. Maybe it got broken somewhere along the way. It's very frustrating!
--

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[rho]

FreeBSD pcmcia support isn't that great.

Somebody better tell my laptop, then. The IBM 760ED with a Megahertz PCMCIA Ethernet card in it, the one I'm using right now to post this. My main axe.

PCMCIA support in FBSD and OBSD are just fine. FBSD had USB support before Linux did, IIRC. Hell, FBSD and OBSD just rock. I like Linux, mind, but I prefer xBSD. YMMV

dumb 4.1/4.2 question

[xeno]

Maybe this is a dumb newbie question, but I should probably ask it before trying out this new 4.2 release. I recently attempted to install 4.1 on a 486 box for use as a router, and it completed the install routine ok. However, on first boot, it hangs at the boot loader. From the behavior, it seems as if the 4.1 boot loader is compiled for pentium and above and panics pretty fast. So much for my first experience with BSD.

Is this normal? Should this behavior change with 4.2? Can I use the 4.2 cd to do a simple install on a 486, or do I have to (a) roll my own from source or (b) install an older rev and upgrade from there?

J

Re:Upgrading FreeBSD

[mosch]

That binary upgrade option isn't remotely comparable to an 'apt-get upgrade' style upgrade. It lacks the modularity, and sanity of apt-get, and the method of handling configuration files is messy (your *real* /etc is elsewhere now).

It's a known problem, and jkh has made proposals for a good solution, but it's not implemented yet.

As for the source tree, I agree sometimes. I use source upgrades on my desktop, where it uses a mere 280 megs of disk space for /usr/src, but theoretically say that a company has a couple thousand servers.... suddenly modular binary upgrades become much more important.

What I'd really like is to be able to replace a running kernel, but I don't see any of the Free OSen approaching that capability anytime soon.

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Daddy, why are we hiding from the police?

[Omega996]

Because we use vi, son. They use emacs...

Re:Volcano Report: FreeBSD JDK is world's slowest

[warlock]

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. I guess we should also add 'benchmarks' and their interpretations to this list.

First of all, what you decided to ignore is the fact that according to those benchmarks, the slowest of the bunch is not FreeBSD's JDK, but Transvirtual Kaffe 1.0 for Linux. How convenient, but does it matter? No. Why?

TowerJ is a NATIVE COMPILER, and IBM's, as well as all the other VMs tested APPART from FreeBSDs used a JIT compiler - and we're talking about FreeBSD 2.2.8 for crying out loud. I'm surprised it actually HAD a JDK.

Needless to say, things changed:
http://www.freebsd.org/java/

-W

Re:Why not use Solaris instead?

[be-fan]

Umm, its $75. There's no free download. Solaris 8 is crazy slow on smaller Intel machines.

Re:BSD 4.2 is crap - User BeOS then

[be-fan]

You can accuse BeOS of a lot of things, but you can't accuse it of being bloated. This is the OS that fits more or less unchanged onto handhelds. The entire BeOS /system directory is 30MB. This includes all the servers, the kernel, and drivers for all the devices. The kernel, all the servers, and the GUI take up 8MB, while a full set of drivers takes up another 5-7 MB. XFree86 alone takes up more than that. The maximum install for the OS is 180MB, including all sample code, compilers, IDE, a large number of GNU utilities. If you need more, than almost any UNIX utility you need is included in the geek gadgets port. While hardware support is still spotty, you're probably using strange hardware. If you use it on modern, mainstream hardware, then it is fairly rare to find an unsupported config. All three of my computers (2 hand-built with the weird OEM parts) support BeOS fully. Inkjet printer support is sketchy, but if your doing media, you're probably using a Postscript (430-something of those supported) printer anyway. Since it looks like you haven't checked, there is a SANE port as well, so scanner support should be similar to Linux. If you don't like the dinky partition (which is interesting, given the fact that my 3GB BeOS partition is only half full and I use it 90% of the time) you can install it on any size harddrive you want courtesy of the 64bit file system. Networking is being rewritten (out real soon now! Probably not much later than Linux 2.4, if that late, as the beta is already running some website servers) which should allow NFS, and SMB (I assume SAMBA?) has a port as does Apache 2.0

Re:BSD 4.2 is crap - User BeOS then

[be-fan]

X takes up more space than all of BeOS, and it still runs OpenGL and regular 2D apps slower than Windows. What more proof do you need? QSSL had the right idea to never use X in an OS meant for speed. (Photon is damn nifty!)

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[NatePuri]

you're missing something... No really, check the hardware compat page. Not all pcmcia works, cardbus doesn't work at all, for example.

If you are really dying for the performance/stability/security boost you get with freebsd (like I was), then you'll shell out a couple hundred extra sheckles for the cards (like I did).

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[NatePuri]

sorry about the bold, wrong tag; I didn't mean to yell folks... my bad...

Re:Not good for desktop

[NatePuri]

Then you should use MS's products, where there are supposedly supported closed desktop products that the world uses.

As for you gripe about "shareware" Mr. "I just started using Unix and still use the word 'shareware'" things like LyX are awesome, try the GIMP film version to see why the open source world of shareware kicks much ass. Seriously, no one really cares a hell of a lot about using a Unix for the "business productivity apps." If I wanted to be bored out of my mind, I would use my WinME box with Word, what the Hell. If I want to see what's really going on I hack on multimedia apps for making movies, music, etc. and sharing them with friends. Believe me, these apps are coming down the pipe soon.

Applixware may not be your cup of tea, but it is fast stable and very very useful. It's conversion filters are the best in the business, they have to be or no one could use it.

I can't believe you say "public domain shareware 'ports'". You must have just migrated to the open source world. Get a clue, man.

Re:A Warning to Christians--BSD Daemons and Satani

[kps]

Daemon bondage can be brought about ... (sins of the flesh).

Rack-mount my hardware, finger(1) me, fsck(8) my raw partitions, mount(8) my file systems, abort(3) my child processes, chmod -R ugo=rw ~,... /etc, /etc.

The Bible makes it clear that there are daemons, or evil spirits, in the world that interfere in people's lives.

Yeah, had some trouble with rarpd(8) terminating; ended up putting the X terminals' IP addresses in NVRAM instead.

"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire ...

Like I'm leaving my network open to script kiddies.

... or that useth divination, or an observer of times, ...

1:22AM up 28 days, 7:38, 1 user, load averages: 2.03, 0.71, 0.32
(Storm. Power cut outlasted the UPS. And just whose fault was that? "Act of God", they said.)

... a consulter with familiar spirits...

Aw, c'mon. It's not just BSD sysadmins who are driven to drink.

... or a wizard ...

Well. Don't blame me when your universe crashes.

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like

Yay, new Slashdot poll! I got 82%; how about you?

1. Compulsion to abuse animals or people;

Fuck you.

2. Sexual perversion and immorality (homosexuality, molestation,etc.);

See #1.

Also, counselors at CBN 700 Club can pray with you by telephone.

$4.99/minute. Have your credit card ready; will appear as "Bondage Daemons" on your statement. Must be 18 to call. For entertainment purposes only.

Re:Upgrading FreeBSD

[mosch]

No, I meant thousands of servers, and if you don't think it's possible, look at really large ISPs or telecommunication companies, or even Yahoo.

The company I work for actually has deployed thousands of FreeBSD, Linux and QNX servers, and probably our biggest operational challenge is maintainance and configuration management.

Some of these sites are have poor quality network connection, so you can't assume that your script will have ten minutes where everything will be fine, in order to perform the upgrade, and if, for example, the Peru servers crash, we need to send a field tech, at a real cost of somewhere in the neighborhood of $5k, and that's doesn't count the cost of downtime.

I know this isn't the "standard" use of FreeBSD, but it's definitely not totally uncommon, and it definitely does exist.

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Re:BSD 4.2 is crap - User BeOS then

[be-fan]

Linsux sucks. Why don't use just use FreeBSD? It is a bloated, slow POS. Why is it that anti-BeOS trolls never get modded?

minor mishap with the ISO image

[step]

fresh from the freebsd-announce mailing list:

Due to a last-minute problem (a build error, not a bug with KDE or FreeBSD itself) which was discovered with the KDE packages on the Intel architecture ISO image for 4.2-RELEASE, I've updated the image at:

ftp:/ /ft p.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES /4.2-install.iso

I also took the opportunity to include the windowmaker package, which was mistakenly left off (and referenced by one of FreeBSD's canned Desktop profiles).

The new MD5 checksum for this image is:
MD5 (4.2-install.iso) = 7eec8a2e4bc2211fccf18b5a6fd5b55e

If you do not have any interest in installing the KDE desktop or windowmaker and you have already grabbed the previous installation ISO then you can safely ignore this announcement; nothing else was changed.

Apologies to everyone who downloaded the first ISO image and had an unsatisfactory KDE experience. Excrement occurs.

- Jordan

Re:FreeBSD is an OS, not a distribution

[mr]

For the same reason various Linux distros have differently patched kernels. The people who package up the code think it would be better with their own changes.

Re:Freebsd has problems

[mr]

The number one problem facing Freebsd now is loss of marketshare. Week after week Freebsd keeps slipping lower in the marketshare surveys.

Really?

Got some URL's showing this on a week by week basis?

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[rho]

I suppose -- I guess it depends on what you need in PCMCIA support. It works fine for me. If you've got a PCMCIA CDROM or something that doesn't work, it may suck for you.

Just wanted to hold up my end on my fave OS :)